Bar shaped articles of foodstuff, such for example as chocolate bars, chocolate coated wafers, and biscuits are produced by modern producing machinery at a rate higher than that at which they can be packaged by a single packaging machine, notwithstanding that the packaging machine operates continuously.
The articles are normally delivered from the producing machine as a procession, in which they are disposed in end-on orientation in files and rows, and it is accordingly necessary to make provision for systematic feeding of the articles in the procession to a plurality of separate packaging machines. It is known to arrest momentarily individual rows of articles and direct them to specific packaging machine infeeds, usually at right angles to the product flow, and in a typical plant four or five packaging machines may be systematically fed from the production line. However, the time of demand for product from each packaging machine will not always synchronise with the frequency of rows on the main supply conveyor, but for intermittent packaging machines this does not cause a problem.
When, in the interests of speed of production, continuous motion packaging machines are used it is necessary for the supply of articles to the machines to be continuous, the rate to be reasonably constant, and to provide an immediate and convenient by-pass system to allow for inevitable stoppages of the packaging machines. It is an object of the present invention to feed continuously a number of packaging machines so that the rate of supply to any individual machine, being derived from a predetermined and fixed share of the procession of articles delivered from the producing machine, will be reasonably constant and unaffected by the requirements of the others.